Answers

Within Exchange Manager the Exchange admin account and the enterprise admin both account did not have permissions appropriate to do the migration. I discovered this by reading the directions and actually checking to see if they were set correctly. I cannot explain why the Ex admin account didn't have permissions...but nonetheless it was the problem...and my assumption caused the problem. Doh!

I added those permissions to my admin account and then logged into the machine with the migration console as my admin account. Migration went fine. Woo woo!

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I would not worry too much about SMTP settings because the Migration Tools use WebDAV (HTTP protocol).

"Could not locate mailbox" in the Migration Tools indicates that the tool is unable to access the source Mailbox or the target mailbox. So, I would start out with a process to try and find out if it's the source mailbox or the target mailbox.

One simple indicator is the mailbox size page in the Wizard. When you select the user to Migrate him and you get to the Mailbox size page, don't click next and skip it, instead, wait and let it compute the mailbox size. If it comes back with Mailbox size unknown then the tool is having problems talking to the source server (your on-premise Exchange). If it is able to get the size, then, if you still get "could not locate mailbox" it would be the target mailbox (the Tool is unable to access the MSOnline mailbox).

If it's the source, I would check:1) Check the "Allow Unsecure Connection" option in the first page of the Wizard. If your on-premise server does not have the proper certs and you do not check this, the tool will be unable to read from the source mailbox.2) That you have proper Admin access to the user's mailbox. You may need to grant yourself Full Access rights to their mailbox. The tool will use the Credentials of the account you are currently logged in as in Windows.3) Your Exchange Server's IIS settings.

If it's the target, I would check:1) The user is properly activated and licensed with a mailbox2) The MSOL Admin account provided to the tool was a valid admin account.

Beyond that, I would recommend you open a support ticket and work with support.

One thing that would help you see the problems is if you attempt the same operation using the PowerShell cmdlets that the Migration Tool offers. To do that:1) Run Programs -> Microsoft Online Services -> Migration -> Migration Shell2) Execute: $creds = Get-Credential3) Type in your MSOnline Admin Creds4) Execute: Move-XsExchangeMailboxToMicrosoftOnline userAlias -TargetCredential $creds -Verbose(Where userAlias is the alias of the user you're trying to migrate)

This will give you a detailed description of what the Migration Tool is trying to do.

This is what I receive:PS C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.DOMAIN> Move-XsExchangeMailboxToMicrosoftOnline user@domain.com -TargetCredential $creds -VerboseThe term 'Move-XsExchangeMailboxToMicrosoftOnline' is not recognized as a cmdlet, function, operable program, or script file. Verify the term and try again.At line:1 char:40+ Move-XsExchangeMailboxToMicrosoftOnline <<<< user@domain.com -TargetCredential $creds -Verbose

Within Exchange Manager the Exchange admin account and the enterprise admin both account did not have permissions appropriate to do the migration. I discovered this by reading the directions and actually checking to see if they were set correctly. I cannot explain why the Ex admin account didn't have permissions...but nonetheless it was the problem...and my assumption caused the problem. Doh!

I added those permissions to my admin account and then logged into the machine with the migration console as my admin account. Migration went fine. Woo woo!

I would not worry too much about SMTP settings because the Migration Tools use WebDAV (HTTP protocol).

"Could not locate mailbox" in the Migration Tools indicates that the tool is unable to access the source Mailbox or the target mailbox. So, I would start out with a process to try and find out if it's the source mailbox or the target mailbox.

One simple indicator is the mailbox size page in the Wizard. When you select the user to Migrate him and you get to the Mailbox size page, don't click next and skip it, instead, wait and let it compute the mailbox size. If it comes back with Mailbox size unknown then the tool is having problems talking to the source server (your on-premise Exchange). If it is able to get the size, then, if you still get "could not locate mailbox" it would be the target mailbox (the Tool is unable to access the MSOnline mailbox).

If it's the source, I would check:1) Check the "Allow Unsecure Connection" option in the first page of the Wizard. If your on-premise server does not have the proper certs and you do not check this, the tool will be unable to read from the source mailbox.2) That you have proper Admin access to the user's mailbox. You may need to grant yourself Full Access rights to their mailbox. The tool will use the Credentials of the account you are currently logged in as in Windows.3) Your Exchange Server's IIS settings.

If it's the target, I would check:1) The user is properly activated and licensed with a mailbox2) The MSOL Admin account provided to the tool was a valid admin account.

Beyond that, I would recommend you open a support ticket and work with support.

One thing that would help you see the problems is if you attempt the same operation using the PowerShell cmdlets that the Migration Tool offers. To do that:1) Run Programs -> Microsoft Online Services -> Migration -> Migration Shell2) Execute: $creds = Get-Credential3) Type in your MSOnline Admin Creds4) Execute: Move-XsExchangeMailboxToMicrosoftOnline userAlias -TargetCredential $creds -Verbose(Where userAlias is the alias of the user you're trying to migrate)

This will give you a detailed description of what the Migration Tool is trying to do.

I'm getting the exact same problems as Nathan, even after removing myself from the Enterprise admins group and adding myself to the Exchange Domain Servers group. I've even explicitly given my user Full Mailbox Access to every mailbox on the Exchange Server and I'm still running into the "Could not locate mailbox" issue. The only thing I haven't done is check the Exchange Server's IIS settings. Which settings should I look out for?

You can use the SourceLocation parameter to indicate a specific IIS virtual directory to use for the migration. Otherwise, the Transporter will attempt various combinations and use the first one to successfully return a folder list.

If the credentials you are using are for an Exchange Org Admin, you can use the ExAdmin vdir, which will give you access to all mailbox content, regardless of the permissions on the individual mailboxes. This vdir is generally not enabled on a front-end server, and is sometimes even locked down on the mailbox servers. SSL is typically not enabled, so you must pass the AllowUnsecureConnection parameter. A SourceLocation for the ExAdmin vdir for a user in smtp domain contoso.com with a mailbox on server mail.backend.local would be:

If the credentials you are using have been granted Full Mailbox Access to the mailbox being migrated, you can use the Exchange vdir, which is generally configured to use NTLM on a mailbox server and Forms-Based Auth on a CAS (front-end) server. The Transporter supports both, but to use Forms-Based Auth, you must pass in the credentials (so username and password can be entered into the form data). For NTLM, either the logged-on user's credentials (default creds) or explicit credentials (via the SourceCredential parameter) can be used. SourceLocation for the Exchange vdir would be:

.....alternatively, you could post the information...or at least a link.... here and help the world.

Everyone who has worked with this Transporter knows it is a nightmare to work with. Every bit of help would be gratefully received and ending the post on a "I know the answer but I'm not telling" is despicable.

I don't even know whether this post relates to my problem, but it might.

I am having the exact same problem listed. I'm wondering if it has something to do with Exchange 2007 SP2. If you have migrated from Exchange 2007 SP2 please post.

I have exchange 2007 08.02.0176.002 (service pack 2) I am a domain admin and have specifically added my logged on id to the migration users mailboxes (full access permissions). I have tried remotely on Server 2003 R2 32 bit and locally on the Exchange 2007 Sp2 backend server running Server 2008 R1 . I can not access the size of the mail box locally and always get "Object reference not set to instance of an object" on the mailbox size screen. It seems to be the consensus that this is a permissions issue but my user can create, delete and move exchange mailboxes so that is not it.

After I doubled checked that I had all the permitions needed I realized that that the Migration Tool uses NTLM to access mail boxes through WebDav.

Since we were using Form based Authentication on the OWA it turns out that it will not accept NTLM authentications.

After changing this to: Integrated Windows authentication I was able to move my mailboxes.

100 %

Do you have the client access tools running on the backend box? Microsoft has been helping me debug and it appears that it tries to connect to the mailboxes via IIS on the backend server. My backend server does not offer any client access. I have been wanting to change the authentication to NTLM from basic so I may give that a try.

I take it that your are using Postini to filter your email and then deliver the "clean" email to online exchange. If this is correct could you please advise what configuration changes you made in both Postini and online exchange. I have a situation where the online exchange cannot be authorotative (we have a shared smtp name space) and use Postini for filtering and delivery to multiple destinations. Have setup Postini to deliver to the online gateway, however get a relay error when messages are sent.

Hi based on what you are describing, I think what you'll need to do to get this to work is have postini rewrite the SMTP addresses for the Microsoft Online users. So let's say your domain name is company.com and you have user@company.com on Microsoft Online. When the mail comes into postini, you need to have Postini deliver the mail to user@company.microsoftonline.com , via mail.global.frontbridge.com. If your domain is not authoritative in Microsoft Online, frontbridge will only accept the microsoft online routing address, @company.microsoftonline.com.

I don't know if Postini can actually do this, but if it can, that's how you would get it to work.

1. ensure your account has the proper security settings on the 2007 FAQ page and

2. DO NOT INSTALL ANY OF THE MIGRATION/SYNC TOOLS on the exchange server itself. it wasn't clear in the documentation when I first started this project, but after moving the tools to a standalone box everything worked fine... the migration tool
does NOT like talking to the same box its calling from for whatever reason. :)

Did you ever find resolution to your migration issue? I am having the exact same problem as you with regards to our mailboxes being hosted on a mailbox role only server and CAS on seperate servers. The migration tool is attempting to call web
services from the mailbox server and it isnt working. I'm really stuck and MS support is getting me know where. Thanks!Jeff

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